


behold these fruits of our labor

by jadeddiva



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-01 21:58:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2789168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeddiva/pseuds/jadeddiva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kil Moryakov cannot think of anything better than to serve his tsar at his brother’s side.  But, at the dawning of a new age, fate is never kind.  Killian Jones-centric Russian Revolution AU fic with CS.</p>
            </blockquote>





	behold these fruits of our labor

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of notes:  
> \- Liam is named Mikhail because apparently Liam breaks down to ‘helmet of Will’ and ‘Guardian’ and Michael is a guardian angel popular in Orthodox Christianity which everyone in Russia would have been a member prior to the revolution (post-revolution, religion becomes the opiate of the masses)  
> \- Lebed is Russian for Swan  
> \- Moryak is Russian for sailor  
> \- At least, that’s what Google translate tells me

There is a routine that he follows every morning when he wakes: stoke the small furnace in the corner of his room (and cough at the smoke that belches forth from it’s tiny belly); break the ice that has formed over his water pitcher while he slept (in winter, spring, and fall, at least); pour both water and vodka from his bedside table into the waiting glass. Every morning, he toasts the party, and the revolution, and his own damned cursed luck to be here another day.  

 

He tells himself he does it to keep his sanity, but that hangs by a thread most days anyway. In reality, he does it to convince himself that today really is another day, and perhaps some good will come to this miserable cripple with a hook for a hand and a military pension that is worth nothing when the military he belonged to no longer exists.

 

But that doesn’t really matter - after all, what does Comrade Lenin say? Something about a lie being told often enough that it becomes the truth (at least, that’s what he thinks Comrade Lenin says, but he has a nasty habit of lying to himself).

 

 

…

 

When Kil Moryakov is twelve, his brother Mikhail joins the Imperial Army as an ensign. To be an officer, and to serve the tsar, that is the great achievement that Kil can think of, and Mikhail cuts such a fine figure in his uniform that he is instantly jealous.

 

“Don’t worry, little brother,” Mikhail says as he leaves, ruffling Kil’s hair, “you will join me soon enough. The Moryakov brothers will be talk of St. Petersburg one day.” He puts his cap over his head and kisses Mother once more on the cheek before mounting his horse and leaving with the other new cavalry officers.  

 

The day that Mikhail leaves is the last time that Kil is truly happy.

 

Mother dies the following winter, the weakness that has plagued her since Kil’s birth finally claiming her one cold December morning when he cannot break through the ice of the water bucket, when the fire has long since gone out and there is no more tinder to stoke it into life again. His father has been gone for years, and there is no family anywhere nearby, so he takes to the streets, begging at the richest houses for table scraps, skulking around the Army barracks looking for distraction. The men there take pity on him, and by the time Mikhail finally returns, Kil can load a rifle faster than the best of the men, and can cheat at cards better than any of them too, so it’s no wonder that, when he’s seventeen, he joins the regiment just like his brother.

 

By the time they are called up to the front in 1914, to fight the Kaiser and protect Russia, the Moryakov brothers are ready for the adventure.

 

By the end of 1916, one of them is dead, and the other is starving and ready to be anywhere but in a dingy apartment in St. Petersburg, freezing half to death.

 

…

 

He tries not to think about the war, but that is all anyone wishes to talk about when he returns.   There has been famine since he left, but it was just as bad at the front as it was at home, with men leaving in the middle of the night in groups of two or three, and the constant lack of food, lack of shelter, lack of leadership. Maybe it was different when he was younger, and more idealistic about what the army meant. Maybe he never really understood what it was like to begin with – but then again, did any of them?

 

Maybe if he had been smarter, he would still have his hand. Perhaps if he had been quicker, he would have still had his hand. Perhaps if he had been a little less hungry, or a little less tired, or a little less drunk, he would have had his hand. But Mikhail would still be gone, and there would still be something missing in his life.

 

Kil did not receive the opportunity to desert; he was sent home the minute his hand was taken from him by enemy gunfire then frostbite, as a man not fit to hold a rifle was not fit to be in the Army.   He was given a loaf of bread that was more sawdust than wheat, and some rubles for his troubles. The rubles bought him vodka, and little else, but for everything else that he needs there is Mikhail’s belongings, clothes to cover his back and money to let the small room at the top of three flights of stairs over the butcher shop.  

 

The butcher is an old woman they call _Baboushka_ (affectionately, and she seems to like the name) and she takes pity on him, telling him she lost a son to the foolishness of the army as well. She mutters treasonous words under her breath and between chops of her cleaver, but treason is in the air in St. Petersburg these days.

 

He helps with odds and ends around the shop, carrying heavy loads as best he can and sweeping up. It is not enough work because of the famine and the shortage of cattle, and it is not enough work to make him tired, and to ease the ache between his shoulder blades, but it is enough to keep his idle mind active. At the close of the day he often drinks kvass with Baboushka and her granddaughter, Rubi, who works at the shop on occasion but who spends most of her time out at party meetings.   She tells them of a change in the wind, of the unrest of the workers in the factories and the hunger of the people in the city and the ridiculous demands of the tsarina, whispered to her by that vile monk.

 

“Governments should take care of their people,” Rubi says, as Baboushka brings out the bottle of vodka (as she always does when their talk turns to treasonous, revolutionary words and thoughts).

 

“Governments cannot always do what is right,” Kil points out, and Rubi spits on the floor (Baboushka smacks her upside the head for that).

 

“Then what good is a government who cares not for what is right?” Rubi asks, fire in her eyes that matches the fire in Kil’s belly from the vodka, and that night he does not sleep. Instead, he wonders what good a government is that does not care for what it right, that does not care for it’s people, that does not feed it’s soldiers and sends them off on errands that end in deadly skirmishes with the enemy?

 

“No good,” he says to no one but himself. “A government that does not care for its people is no good at all.” His words linger in the cold air of his small room.

 

The next time he sees her, he asks Rubi to take him to one of the meetings she attends. She takes him to the Bolsheviks, the minority group in the party (Rubi always did like the underdog).

 

And that is where he meets Milah.

 

…

 

Mila Stiltskin is a force of nature – a tidal wave who comes crashing into his life seemingly by chance, and who drags him under with her.   She is a wife and a mother, an active member of the Bolsheviks when not working in her crippled husband’s pawn shop. She is full of life, can drink as much vodka as he can, and doesn’t seem to care that he can only touch her with one hand.

 

Their tryst is brief and life-changing: she sneaks away from work and the party to spend hours in his apartment, first talking then fucking, and sometime between the first time he sleeps with her and the last, Kil realizes he’s fallen in love with her.

 

“Leave your husband,” he tells her, pressing kisses to her neck, raking his teeth across her collarbone (she pushes him away, always under the pretense that he cannot leave a mark, even when she’s shivering and arching under his touch).   “Come be with me.”

 

“And do what? Leave my home for your bed?” she asks, shoving him off of her and gathering her clothes. “I have a child,” she insists as she pulls up her stockings. “I have a life.”

 

What she does not say is _that life does not concern you_. What she does not say is _why would I leave one cripple to be with another?_

 

Mila is a whirlwind, breaking him in two when she leaves, when she avoids his glances at the party meetings. She is a storm, washing his hope down the drain into the gutter. He drinks, and he curses, makes up plans to challenge Mila’s husband for her honor, even goes so far as to approach the pawn shop, emboldened by love and drink. And then he sees her with her young boy and his plans fade, and he walks away from the shop, and from Mila, his good hand clenched in his pocket, the cold wind harsh on his face.

 

He drinks himself into such desperation that he does not leave his room, wallowing in self-pity and anguish, wondering when the man who rose to the rank of captain (what good is a captain in an army that is falling apart?) through his own merits became such a hollow shell, so lost and alone.   Rubi bangs on his door, shouting threats and profanity before claiming the key from Baboushka and barging in.

 

“You’re a waste of space, Kil Moryakov, and that is all you will ever be if you allow yourself to act like this,” she tells him before pouring water over his head. It is a cold wake-up call, and Kil blinks twice, wiping the freezing water from his eyes.

 

“Then help me,” he asks her, desperation on every word, in his veins.

 

Rubi nods in agreement. “But only because you’re so handsome, and because Baboushka likes you so much,” she says as she agrees.

 

Kil cannot help but smile. “Are you telling me that you don’t like me?” he teases her, feeling his mood lighten, and Rubi crosses her arms and rolls her eyes in response.

 

She helps him find a job at the docks, helping unload the ships. It is good work, and honest work. He fashions a hook for his left hand, to make him more useful as he joins the others to pull ropes, to tie the ships to the platform.   With every movement of his arms, with every pull of his muscles, he feels his life come together again.

 

 

 

…

 

And just as it comes together, it rips apart.

 

Within short time, the tsar that Kil served - the one that Liam died for – is overthrow and executed, his family lost one night in the bitter St. Petersburg winter. The city, already in the throes of chaos with the strikes of the factory workers, erupts into pandemonium.

 

When the dust finally clears, there is a new order, and those who were cast out – those outspoken rebels, those Communist leaders – have returned.

  
Gone are the days of the prosperity of the rich and the suffering of the poor; in its place is the drive for equality, the belief in the workers of the world uniting. Rubi listens eagerly, Kil not as eager, but the words ring true. He has seen battle, has seen the coming of a new age even if the tsar and the others ignored it. It is a new dawn, and he is ready to embrace it (after all, anything has to be better than the old world that took his brother and his hand).

 

And in this new world, he meets Lebed.

 

…

 

The first time he walks her home from a meeting, he does so because Baboushka tells him too, saying that Lebed lives not far from here, and that it is what nice young gentleman do (he reminds her that he is not a nice young gentleman, but she merely laughs in his face and sends him on his way).   Lebed does not speak much as they walk, but he finds that what she does say is amusing.

 

The second time he walks her home, he does so because they found themselves in conversation as the meeting ended, and he wanted to hear more of what she had to say.   Lebed has a sharp tongue that dispenses sharpened words that make him nod his head in agreement, and he finds her more interesting than he expected.

 

The third time he walks her home, he does so because he wants to hear her opinion on the meeting, much like the time before. Lebed does not mince words, and she makes him laugh and rant within a single sentence, and he finds that she is utterly unlike other women in Petrograd (a new name for a new age).

 

The fourth time he walks her home, he does so because he cannot bear to part with her. Lebed’s hair is the color of wheat in summer and it peaks out from underneath her scarf, and he finds that he wants to see all of it, wants to see it between his fingers, wants to feel it’s softness (for it must be soft, since everything else about this woman is as unyielding as stone, as brittle as iron, and yet he is drawn back to her, time and time again, trying to find that softness that she must hide underneath).

 

 

…

 

“Can you move?” the soft voice asks beside him, and Kil looks up before shifting, only slightly surprised (and very happy) to see Lebed sliding onto the empty bench beside him, removing her scarf but keeping her gloves on, rubbing her hands together in spite of the relative warmth of this overcrowded room.

 

This is not the first time that Lebed has sat beside him during a party meeting (sometimes she talks to him, sly asides under her breath, sometimes she doesn’t but he teases her when she’s too silent, pulling back when she frowns, never pushing her too far) but he remembers each time, cherishes them because it’s not material goods that matter, not when you have nothing to begin with, not when nothing belongs to you in the end. He doesn’t know her true name, knows only by the pet name she takes as her own within the party and in their new brave new world, and it feels wrong, too personal to call her by something that perhaps her family call her, an endearment such as this (though he does admire her, ardently in fact, even if she is as cold as the Neva in January, even if her smile is as fleeting as the winter sun).

 

He does not pay much attention to the meeting itself, too focused on the brush of her woolen coat against his shoulder, the smell of woodsmoke that clings to her hair, the way that her hands rub each other as if she will never be warm (how he wishes to warm her hands for her, to feel them in his own) but it does not matter, because he will offer to walk her home, as always, and she will discuss the finer points of the evening that he may have missed while focusing on her, as always.    

 

And, always, he will find this woman consuming all of his thoughts, all of his intentions, even if he barely knows her. There is something within her that calls to him, as like calls to like (she is in his bones, in his marrow, and he does not even know her name, only that she is stubborn and obstinate and perhaps just a bit lost like himself, and the most lovely thing he’s ever seen).

 

He has tried, and asked, about other times to see her (this brave new world means brave new forms of courtship he has yet to master) but she always deflects, and so he assumes that she is merely turning him down easily (after all, who would want a cripple for a husband?).

 

(And so, the tenth time he walks her home – or is it the twelfth? The fifteen? He has lost count – he does so because he is lost without this part of his routine, even if he finds that he knows what her answer will be, even if it breaks him just a little but more to know that once again, he will not be enough).

 

It is dark when they leave he meeting, and Lebed accepts his offer (as always). It is not far to her apartment, since this is their local party meeting, but every moment is something he savors, because they are moments with her, but there is a bitterness at the back of his throat that has nothing to do with the vodka that was passed around at the meeting, and more to do with his own demons.   That deep melancholy inside of him rears its head when they approach her door, and he knows he will not ask, not this time. There are limits to a woman’s good humor (he remembers that with Mila, remembers when her smiles became frowns and when the jokes about his hand weren’t funny anymore).

 

Besides, there is more vodka at home to chase away the thoughts of Lebed, with her fiery eyes and sharp tongue and the softness that hides beneath everything, which he’s only seen a handful of times.

 

They say their goodbyes, he makes a few choice remarks about the warmth of the room at the meeting being fueled by Communist fervor (she laughs, politely) before he turns away.   There’s a moment, when he looks back to see her turning around, stopping on the steps outside her dwelling, key to her apartment in her hand.

 

“You’re losing your touch, Captain,” she teases him, using his former title as a form of endearment (he lost a hand and his honor in that war, and he should never have told her but there is vodka at the meetings and it slipped out on the way home and now she never lets it go) and he frowns, uncertain, before she says, “you did not ask to see me again.”

 

“I’ve already given you enough practice with telling me ‘no’, Comrade Lebed,” he responds with a sad smile, taking a step back, turning around once more.

 

Her response cuts through the cold air: “I thought you told me that a man who does not fight for what he wants deserves what he get,” she teases him, and he can’t help but grin as she uses his philosophy against him. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his overcoat, shrugs his shoulders and tilts his head.

 

“There is only one thing I want, Comrade, and that is your name,” he tells her, because it is easier this way, because he wants more (wants to taste her lips, wants to see her elusive smile always and forever) but he does not think that she will give any of that freely.

 

There is a clatter as a window above them opens, and a young boy’s head peeks out. “Mama!” he cries, “Grandmother says that we will not wait for you anymore, that we will eat without you if you stay another minute out in the cold.”

 

Kil looks upwards at the young boy, and then back at Lebed, at the endearing smile that lifts the corners of her mouth.   Of course, then; she is married, this is just to humor him. He swallows, waits until the boy disappears so that he can make a polite exit.   When the window closes, he is about to speak but she speaks first.

 

“His father is dead – or, as near dead to him as can be. He went to the front but he never came back.” She shrugs. “Last I heard he was in Moscow, drinking away his inheritance, but that was before the revolution.”

 

“Still,” Kil says, “goodnight, Comrade Lebed.” He turns around but again her voice calls him back.

 

“Emma,” she says softly, but he can hear it over the pounding of his heart. “My name is Emma Davydova.”

 

When he turns around again, she is gone, disappeared into her building, returned to her mother and child.

 

“Emma,” he says, repeating the name, rolling it around in his mouth, savoring it the entire walk home (all four city blocks, and three flights of stairs).

 

…

 

Her lips are soft.

 

That is what he thinks, as he leans in again, capturing her mouth with his own. Her lips are soft, and her hair is soft, and her body is soft against his as he presses her back into the mattress, as they steal a moment before Genrikh, her son, returns home from school.

 

“Emma,” he whispers against his wife’s throat, against her breasts as she opens beneath him. She has come to this bed (this marriage bed) willingly, after a year of courtship and the urging of her mother who was a friend of Baboushka’s, but Kil knows that she is also there for him, for the way that she arches into his touch and moans softly as his mouth descends is unlike anything he has ever experienced or will experience again.   Her fingers twist in his hair and his name escapes her lips in a harsh whimper, and he stares at her golden hair on the pillow, at her belly that grows more each day.

 

It is strange, to think that fate has shown favor on such a miserable man as himself, with a hook for a hand and a steady income, in good standing with the party and with a wife and his own son on the way, and Kil wonders if this is a dream, if he is lying to himself.   And then Emma rolls him over, her hair cascading around them, smiling as she settles herself on him, and he knows that this is no lie (and he starts to believe that coming home for lunch is habit that he can easily form if this is the welcome he receives).


End file.
